My parents are normal people who would be thrilled to have grandchildren by me*, but will be happy to settle for grandchildren by my brother–although they were relieved that said grandchildren did not show up until 3 or 4 years after the wedding. (Brother and wife were terribly young when they got married).
*It’s not too late for me to have children, it’s just by no means guarenteed that I will.
Horror story from a friend of mine:
When Lisa and Jake got married, Jake’s mother was baby-crazy. Not grandchild specific, just talking about babies to the point that a reasonable assumption was that there would soon be a baby in her life–like maybe Jake and Lisa’s baby.
One of the people who got this impression was Lisa’s mother. Lisa and her mother have a strained relationship to begin with. And when Lisa’s mother approached Lisa as she dressed for the wedding to demand to know why Lisa hadn’t told her she was expecting a baby, it was a mess.
For the record. Lisa was not pregnant, and had not been engaging in the activity which usually leads to pregnancy. And yes, she had every intention of telling her mother directly (rather than through the grapevine) if and when she got pregnant, she just wasn’t then.
Yep, next to pics of my niece and nephew, my mom proudly displays an “Ask Me About My Granddogs” mug with cartoon versions of our beasts, designed by DH.
I don’t know how she’d be if my brother didn’t have kids.
I somehow shut down the in-laws when they kept badgering me about “depriving poor Mr. Kat” (which really meant depriving them, which is insane, since they live halfway across the country and we maybe see them every 5 years) by saying that “poor Mr. Kat” was welcome to have all the kids he wanted, but he wouldn’t be having them with me.
I’m still not sure what it was about that that resonated with them. It was a spur-of-the-moment smart-ass remark. I’m just glad it worked.
Fortunately, my sister had the spawn, so there was no pressure by my mom for my wife and I (kid-free and quite happy, TYVM) to deliver some of our own.
What’s funny (and sad) is that even though she loves her grandkids and visits them cross-country as often as she can, she actually enjoys her trips to our house more. Why?
Because we treat her like an adult and not a glorified babysitter, which is essentially how my mom feels when she visits my sis. I feel terrible about it, but her grandkids are precious to her and any kind of rude treatment is, for her, a small price to pay to spend time with the grandkids.
So I like to think of it as a gift that we didn’t have kids (although I’m certain we still wouldn’t treat her the way sis does, even if we did); when she visits us, it’s all about her–her interests, her enjoyment, etc.–and not what she can do for us while she’s here.
Mrs. Nott told her mom, while washing dishes, that I got a vasectomy. There was no more nagging about grandchildren. Besides, by the end of my mother-in-law’s life, she had great-grandchildren from my wife’s sister’s kids.
My brother forestalled any complaining about a lack of grandkids by getting his teenaged girlfriend pregnant. That was not quite what my parents would have had in mind, had they given it any thought at all at that point. He later had another child and my sister has two, so their grandkid jones has been satisfied. But they’re not really doting grandparents anyway; they love the kids but seem very satisfied with seeing them twice a year (week in the summer, week over X-mas) and otherwise talking of the phone and sending presents.
For me, I think my parents know I would like to have children but it looks like that’s not in the cards. It’s not something that keeps me up nights in an otherwise satisfying life, but they would be too considerate to throw that up at me as a shortcoming.
My parents never pressured me about having kids. This is good, since there’s a greater chance of my becoming a millionaire or flying to the moon than of me finding a wife and having kids. Now it’s too late anyways; my mom passed on in '96, and my dad is in a nursing home and not quite all there.
My sisters never had kids either; my older sister passed on in '90, and my younger sister married a man with two children.
We count those as grandkids - just fold 'em up into the family with all the rest.
My Dad’s SO gets a Mother’s Day card even though she never had any children of her own - she’s a grandmom figure to my kids and my nieces & nephews. So she got grandkids without the pain of raising kids! How clever of her.
That’s my husband’s situation. He gained two adult children when he married me, and now we have a granddaughter.
I do feel for his mother, however. She is not one to nag or manipulate her children into having children, but I know she would have loved to be a grandmother in her own right. My husband’s younger brother just got married but having children is probably not in his future. So my MIL has made over my children and now the granddaughter.
My father had just begun to press me about getting married and having kids when he died. Better that he died before the disappointment grew too overwhelming.
My mom had never said a word about it before she died.
Having a child for my parents’ sake is something I would give absolutely zero consideration to.
My brother has spawned so I am off the hook, and the few people [mainly navy wives from NSSF in Groton when we first got married] who wondered why we didnt have kids/didnt get pregnant at our ages [upper 20s]got rather rudely told that it was none of their business why I wasnt yet pregnant, or why we didnt have kids.
Some things should NOT be asked within the first hour of meeting someone, even if they did just have their first anniversary. If you ask if someone has kids when first meeting them, gracefully accept the NO and dont follow up with when are you going to start.
Yes, my mom made a big deal about it some time ago (mom believed that I owed it not only to her, but to society in general, to have kids), but she basically gave up after a couple of years. One thing that helped is that my brother has had 3 kids.
I **hate ** this sentiment. As soon as kid gets married–how long until you’re giving me a grandchild? Oh, now you can start giving me grandchildren! Ew.
Of course, my parents are on the other end of the spectrum. I believe their exact words were: “If you have a child and bring it to us, we’re willing to look at it.” My mom definitely does not want to do any more child care or even have to hold or entertain a baby. She did it once and it was more than enough.
I’m lucky that my parents haven’t pressured me to do anything or made me feel like a failure for being an old maid.
I think Mammahomie was just of the belief that I would be a good father, and that any kid raised by me would grow up to be, if not a doctor or nuclear physicist or something, then at least a productive member of society (as opposed to my stepdad’s grandkids, who are, well, let’s just leave it at that).
I suspect if it comes into consideration, they probably think that poor people/people in Third World countries should knock it off. My FIL/MIL had several kids - they kept at it until they had a boy.
Nah, my problem is the direct opposite. I want kids someday (not in the near future, but someday) and my parents don’t want anymore grandchildren. I’m the youngest of 9 and all of my siblings except my brother chris and I have at least 2 kids.
My parents have even gone as far as to say things like they won’t buy anything for anymore grandkids and they don’t want to “deal” with anymore…
